Blackguards 2 - Announced

June 10th, 2014, 18:41

The sequel to Blackguards, which is obviously named Blackguards 2, has been announced today by Daedelic Entertainment.

Blackguards 2: Daedalic announces sequel to its SRPG success

Hamburg, June 10th, 2014. Not much time has passed, but a lot has happened in the time between the events of the turn-based RPG-hit Blackguards and its sequel Blackguards 2, which is officially announced today by Daedalic Entertainment and EuroVideo: Blackguards 2 is set only few years after the story of the first game, but will bring along many changes – for the well-known characters as well as for the players.

Blackguards 2 will stay an SRPG focussing on turn-based, strategic battles with a group of scoundrels as anti-heroes. Some of the best-known Blackguards from the first game will be part of the team again – unfortunately, their lives didn’t go very well since then. Dwarf Naurim, for example, has rest on his fame as a successful gladiator and defeater of the Nine Hordes. He used his popularity for shady businesses and excessive parties and got quite potbellied – not a very good condition for battles, and so he hung up his axe and ditched his old gang, as long as they wouldn't yield any profit.

Wizard Zurbaran was even less lucky: His mistress could track down the former slave, who was able to escape his servitude. She shackled, mortified and sold him for one symbolic copper piece at the slave market.

Takate, on the other hand, is back among the forest people and arranges his own gladiatorial games, letting humans fight for their destiny, just as he was forced to. He believes that there are no challenges left, after he has defeated the Nine Hordes, and gets bored with sending others to their death.

Nevertheless, the fame of the defeater of the Nine Hordes seems to be everlasting – at least for the three survivors, as all others have found their end. Cassia, main protagonist of Blackguards 2, is looking for them: Cassia’s only goal is to rule from the Shark Throne at all costs, even if it’s only for one day. In the Blackguards she sees the fighters and the power she needs for her plans, even if they are a shadow of their former glory: Naurim became fat and lazy, but also more cunning; Zurbaran lost his self-confidence and Takate seems to have lost his killer instinct.

Together with Cassia the three remaining Blackguards will be the main characters of Blackguards 2. In many quests the group will travel through South Aventuria to fulfill Cassias dream.

Blackguards 2 will again be based on the RPG rulebook of The Dark Eye, but it will come along with some revisions, optimisations and simplifications. The gameplay will focus on turn-based battles once more – this time the players have to conquer Cassia’s lands and defend them against intruders when the need arises. As in a fraction-based game the enemies can recapture the territories from the Blackguards.

If not in a battle, players take care of a lot of quests and the development of their characters. As common in RPGs, the quests will offer optional and alternative plotlines.

Furthermore, Blackguards 2 will have new weapons, armor, enemies and stamina as additional battle resource.

On top of that, Blackguards 2 will involve mechanics that have been requested by players of the first game, like improved line of sight, cover and formation.

Glad to hear that there's a sequel and the TDE franchise finally seems to get a foothold in video games again. But I'm not happy about moving even more towards a strategy game. Will buy it anyway, TDE fanboy.

I love the first game. But there are some balance issues if you're playing on hard difficulty. I hope they make the second game much more open-ended. For ex, a travelling system like Fallout or Arcanum with random encounters (some plot fights really needed grinding in the first game), or maybe like King's Bounty would be awesome.

— "Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."
Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

Originally Posted by Morrandir
Glad to hear that there's a sequel and the TDE franchise finally seems to get a foothold in video games again. But I'm not happy about moving even more towards a strategy game. Will buy it anyway, TDE fanboy.

Agreed.

I'll probably get it - the plot sounds pretty awesome. Though it makes me a little sad - I was hoping for the next installment that we'd get to go to Gareth, Andergast, or even Thorwal or Riva. I get nostalgic for the places in the original trilogy.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Hmm. I'm a bit sceptic. I do think that this is waaaay too soon for a proper sequel. And by the sound of it, proper sequel this won't be. While the news does sound good to me, not to mention that territory conuering sounds like a great addition, this should have been billed as an expansion or spin-off or DLC or whatever, not as a straight sequel. Given the short release cycle, I'm 99.9% sure it will be reusing the engine (that's not bad in itself, on the contrary) with minor additions, if any.

In any case, I'm really glad Blackguards did well enough to see another chaper. This one shoots straight near the top of the Most expected games list.

Originally Posted by Polyester
In any case, I'm really glad Blackguards did well enough to see another chaper. This one shoots straight near the top of the Most expected games list.

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised by Blackguards despite not having much interest when it was first released. I found it enjoyable even with the bugs and balance issues.

I ended up stalling in the 3rd chapter and then getting distracted by other game, but I'm looking forward to going back to it someday. It's been patched a couple of times since I last played so I'm hoping it's a smoother experience now.

Originally Posted by Polyester
Hmm. I'm a bit sceptic. I do think that this is waaaay too soon for a proper sequel. And by the sound of it, proper sequel this won't be. While the news does sound good to me, not to mention that territory conuering sounds like a great addition, this should have been billed as an expansion or spin-off or DLC or whatever, not as a straight sequel. Given the short release cycle, I'm 99.9% sure it will be reusing the engine (that's not bad in itself, on the contrary) with minor additions, if any.

Well it's scheduled for release a year after the prior game. Yeah, given that the base engine is already built, that's probably not unreasonable. They have plenty of time for developing all new assets, and most of the major bugs will have already been worked out… so less testing needed.

Originally Posted by NFLed
I enjoyed Blackguards. This announcement is good news in my view. I am hoping for quite a few changes/additions so that it doesn't seem, from a gameplay standpoint, as just the same ol' same ol'.

That conquest mechanic sounds like a totally new thing, but yeah. The game could use some tweaks, possibly in the engine, or even artistically, to make it feel like a fresh addition to the franchise. I mean, even Baldur's Gate 2 wasn't an exact clone of the original. o.o

Was initially quite hyped about blackguards, even ordered the collectors edition but then a lots of things added up:

-Digital Release was brought forward compared to physical release
-As an extra punishment the Digital Release was then also put on a sale
-The collectors edition included items which were totally overpowered making you feel dirty playing it (yes, you can throw them away, but that feels wrong as well)
-The collectors edition did not include a steam key and the customer support also didn't provide one when you contacted them as you "would have the game twice" which is ridiculous. Even the guys who did the new Blade of Destiny gave out steam keys on request
-Daedalic has a policy to not allow Let's Plays unless they were confirmed by them - which they did in the past, but I am waiting for more than a month for my latest request.
-If I wanted to buy the DLC I would have to buy it on a "unknown" third party digital distributer called Gamesrocket. I can't purchase it on steam as I don't have the steam version and I shouldn't buy it from GoG and it might not be compatible according to Daedalic.

And for the game itself the information about game mechanics was quite lacking imho. They announced they would fix it in a patch - and some stuff was also fixed. But now the latest patch is months ago and it doesn't seem like they are going to improve t further.

So for me Blackguards initiated an Age of Disappointment for Daedalic.
Was quite an advocate for them before and played several of their Adventure Games.

Originally Posted by Polyester
Hmm. I'm a bit sceptic. I do think that this is waaaay too soon for a proper sequel. And by the sound of it, proper sequel this won't be. While the news does sound good to me, not to mention that territory conuering sounds like a great addition, this should have been billed as an expansion or spin-off or DLC or whatever, not as a straight sequel. Given the short release cycle, I'm 99.9% sure it will be reusing the engine (that's not bad in itself, on the contrary) with minor additions, if any.

In any case, I'm really glad Blackguards did well enough to see another chaper. This one shoots straight near the top of the Most expected games list.

Daedalic would be well advised to make a *cheap* sequel, meaning old engine plus some improvements and mostly recycled assets (maybe polished a bit) … because nobody expects anything else! It's standard nowadays, even though some companies like to call it "stand-alone add-on" or "DLC trilogy" or whatever.
Another company from Hamburg lost a lot of money with Drakensang 2 and its developer even went out of business, just because they delivered a too ambitious sequel instead of playing it tight.

I think the another Hamburg company got into problems because their product remained almost completely unknown worldwide and more importantly you can't (couldn't) buy it on Steam. At least I was unable to.
Did I write I could never ever buy TRoT add-on anywhere normally but in the end I had to import it on a retail version from USA? That's not a way to make sales.

Luckily Daedalic seems to be smarter so I don't think we'll see Blackguards Online by Bigpoint any time soon.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Was initially quite hyped about blackguards, even ordered the collectors edition but then a lots of things added up:

-Digital Release was brought forward compared to physical release
-As an extra punishment the Digital Release was then also put on a sale
-The collectors edition included items which were totally overpowered making you feel dirty playing it (yes, you can throw them away, but that feels wrong as well)
-The collectors edition did not include a steam key and the customer support also didn't provide one when you contacted them as you "would have the game twice" which is ridiculous. Even the guys who did the new Blade of Destiny gave out steam keys on request
-Daedalic has a policy to not allow Let's Plays unless they were confirmed by them - which they did in the past, but I am waiting for more than a month for my latest request.
-If I wanted to buy the DLC I would have to buy it on a "unknown" third party digital distributer called Gamesrocket. I can't purchase it on steam as I don't have the steam version and I shouldn't buy it from GoG and it might not be compatible according to Daedalic.

And for the game itself the information about game mechanics was quite lacking imho. They announced they would fix it in a patch - and some stuff was also fixed. But now the latest patch is months ago and it doesn't seem like they are going to improve t further.

So for me Blackguards initiated an Age of Disappointment for Daedalic.
Was quite an advocate for them before and played several of their Adventure Games.

I haven't played any of their adventure games, but it sounds like a real lack of planning (with the deluxe edition) and a bad policy. I can understand your dissapointment there. I wonder if this was the first time they made an add-on and if they just screwed up the planning.

Originally Posted by joxer
I think the another Hamburg company got into problems because their product remained almost completely unknown worldwide and more importantly you can't (couldn't) buy it on Steam. At least I was unable to.
Did I write I could never ever buy TRoT add-on anywhere normally but in the end I had to import it on a retail version from USA? That's not a way to make sales.

Luckily Daedalic seems to be smarter so I don't think we'll see Blackguards Online by Bigpoint any time soon.

Yes. Dtp were very nice and friendly guys, but their business focus turned out to be wrong. They didn't get onto the digital band wagon. This killed them in the end.

Daedalic got the business stuff right, it seems. But it was quite a fight for them to get onto Steam, and their fate depended on it, according to their managing director.